It’s really not a lot of fun to go back and catch up on blog posting.  This trip was almost six months ago and I’m already afraid my memory has lost some of the small, but fun, details that I normally would recollect on my blog.  But we had a major camera issue, that actually still has not be completely corrected and that held up my posting.
Stewart had just completed a Digital Photography class at FLCC that required he put the camera into a setting that stored each picture as a .NEF file.  Unfortunately, most applications do not recognize images in this format.  It took him months and months to convert my over 300 photos to .JPG files.  Sadly, even after doing this the images turned out badly pixilated when I printed them into a photo book.  I haven’t given up hope that one day they may be extracted well enough that I can blow up a few of the amazing shots.  But until then, they are at least decent enough to share online.
And so.
SURPRISE TRIP!!!!
John and I first started planning this adventure in April.  Once we’d realized we would not have the opportunity to go to Wyoming, we knew our summer was kind of sitting there waiting for some fun.  Working around Nigel’s Costa Rican missions trip meant I’d slip off with Marie and Tabitha at the end of July for a surprise trip to Prince Edward Island for some Anne of Green Gables visiting and the North Atlantic.

We stopped for breakfast an hour or so out. 


It rained the ENTIRE day…  If we had a solid 10 minutes of no rain anywhere along the way I think I would have noticed. 
My plan had been to end up in Boston around 12 P.M. where we would grab some lunch and do a walking tour of Beantown.

Instead I ran out of gas on the Massachusett’s Turnpike in the driving rain, feet away from a ramp for oncoming traffic, where I used the features on TWO cell phones to contact AAA, 911, John, my mom and praying friends.  Marie read aloud from Psalms as I made Tab move up from the back seat to reduce likelihood of injuries should we get hit from behind by oncoming traffic.  I was scared.  It was miserable.
Finally someone showed up and put some gas in the van and I gave him $5 and off we went.  Although the needle on the gas gauge didn’t budge and I had no idea how little or how much we had.  We got off at the next exit, into the heart of downtown, near the big stadium, and I continued to hang to the right as both of said cell phones tried to help us find a gas station.  It was a congested, intertwining one-way-streets, kind of Toronto feel and gas stations were hard to spot.  We finally found one and the girls and I prayed God would keep our car running like He kept the oil going for the widow.  We made it to the gas station.
It was maybe 50○F and windy and rainy.  I said goodbye to the idea of a walking tour and we pressed on in the rain.


We made it to our hotel in Bangor, which was a lovely Holiday Inn.  We swam a little and had dinner in the bar.  It was not the best or worst meal, but I had lovely dining companions, so that was all that mattered.
We had a crazy-good breakfast the next morning that was free because of the way I had booked it on the website. 




We were on the road by 8 A.M. I believe and although it wasn’t warm, it was at least dry.  We stopped on our way out of town to meet Paul Bunyan. 

The drive was really pretty, though I confess I was petrified of hitting a moose the entire time.  We had no problem crossing the boarder into Canada.  We stopped in Saint John, New Brunswick for some sight-seeing and lunch.  It was chilly, but not cold. 

I wish we’d done a little more shopping, but we were interested in pressing on.

We passed the hours listening to Johnny Tremain on audio book.  And the girls took some turns watching movies and listening to music.  It was a very easy drive the second day.
We arrived at Cavendish around supper time… I’ll start a new post for that.